Pune-based HRS Process system offers innovative and cost effective heat transfer solutions offers its solution to various sectors. Its 25 per cent of the business comes from pharma sector, which is seeing a healthy growth. V Gokuldas, Managing Director, HRS Process Systems in an interaction with Usha Sharma, discusses the company’s business strategies and future plans
What trend do you see in the heat transfer solutions market and how rapidly it is growing in India and abroad?
Heat exchangers are one of the basic process equipment in any industry ranging from pharmaceutical, chemical, petrochemical, fertilisers, oil and gas, power, cement, refrigeration, food & beverage processing and many more. Innovation in heat exchanger design has been necessitated by the rapid growing technology demands in process industry. Heat exchanger design today needs to be energy efficient, withstand a range of process materials taking impact of factors such as varying temperature, pressure, corrosion, fouling, metal combination, etc. New heat exchanger types are developed for specific process application depending on the need for energy conservation.
Globally, there has been a marked increase in demand for heat exchangers in chemical process industry for various processes to enhance energy efficiency. Hygienic and sensitive processes like pharma, healthcare and food processing are moving much faster to adapt emerging advancements in heat transfer technology for a diverse range of applications. Heat exchanger market is growing faster in many emerging markets and in the Asian region including South East Asia and Asia Pacific. Heat exchanger market in these regions is foreseen to continue to have a CAGR of 10 to 15 per cent.
How big is the market for the pharma industry?
The pharma industry has witnessed a decent growth of over 25 per cent in the past years and we expect the industry to maintain and have much a higher growth. There is a growing demand for healthcare products like nutraceuticals, probiotic healthcare supplements, apart from fortified products and generic drugs. The improvement in healthcare infrastructure has also given a boost to the pharma sector.
Which services/ products do you offer to the pharma sector and how much business is generated?
We have a vast range of heat transfer products mainly; ecoflux corrugated tube heat exchanger, shell and tube heat exchanger, plate heat exchanger and heat exchanger based systems for various applications like heating cooling, heat recovery, condensation, sub cooling, reboiler, etc. Our products offer various advantages to the customers in terms of higher efficiency, better product recovery, flexibility in various processes apart from being economical. Our hot water systems for the pharma industry enable better control on the product processing, thus help to enhance productivity and lower cost. We offer heat exchangers in stainless steel and higher grades of metals like hastelloy, duplex, alloy 20, titanium, tantalum, etc., depending on the property of fluid and process requirement. Over 25 per cent of our business comes from the pharma sector and have been having a healthy growth in this sector.
What cost effective solutions do the company offer to its clients?
We offer all heat transfer solutions for the pharma sector under one roof. Different applications require different heat transfer equipment. HRS is able to offer customer solutions based on any of these or a combination of these to suit the processes requirements. Thus, we offer right technical solution for the applications rather than select a product because we have. This is appreciated by customers who can evaluate the three key heat transfer equipment and make a cost effective selection.
How competitive is the business market and whom do you consider as a competitor?
The business market is very competitive with local fabricators and established companies, some of whom are multinationals. We have been able to create a niche for ourselves based on our innovative technology product ‘ECOFLUX Corrugated Tube Heat Exchanger’ and providing heat exchangers with different material of construction as required by the industry. We have been able to demonstrate the advantage of our product and in the past decade have sold over 6000 heat exchangers to the sector with over 50 per cent repeat business.
Who are your clients in the pharma industry.
Our customers in the pharma industry are top notch blue-chip companies like Dr Reddy, Pfizer, Ranbaxy, Cipla, Sun Pharma, Glaxo SmithKline, Nicholas Piramal, Wockhardt, Glenmark, Hetero Drugs, Matrix Labs, Aurobindo Pharma, Torrent Pharma, Aventis Pharma, Lupin, Cadila Healthcare, Novartis, Alembic and many more, who always prefer us as their trusted process partners for heat exchange technology.
What are the marketing strategies?
Our strategy for the sector is to provide reliable technology backed with adequate services. Customers value our solution, which is backed by equipment design and manufacturing facility which is ISO 9001 and ASME, U Stamp certified. Thus we offer quality product at reasonable price.
The company’s research team is working on existing and future processing techniques for heat exchange solutions. Elaborate on it. What research works are being carried on by the company?
Our company is working on heat transfer solutions for heat sensitive and viscous products. These will be for the pharma, nutraceutical and probiotic product categories. We are designing heat exchangers which can be suit well with heat sensitive products without causing degradation. Our other area of focus is effluent heat recovery applications.
How many manufacturing facilities do you have and where are they located? Do you plan to expand/ set up new any facilities?
Our manufacturing facility is located in Pune. This facility is ISO 9001:2008 and ASME ‘U’ Stamp certified spread over an area of four acre with about 40,000 sq ft built up area for various fabrication activities. We do not have any present expansion requirements. The facility is capable of manufacturing 300+ heat exchangers every month and can go upto 500 heat exchangers per month. Our state-of-the-art facility is built according to international standards and has energy saving mechanism for light and ventilation.
The company has a mission to establish a strong heat exchanger brand which will have both innovative and solution driven, meeting customer needs in the heat exchanger market. What strategies have you chalked out to accomplish?
We believe our product performance and customer satisfaction are the drivers for our business and to achieve it we have ensured a very high level of product quality and reliability. Our mission slogan is “Once a customer, customer for life”. Therefore, our product needs to perform to the satisfaction of our customer. In the sector we feel we have been able to establish a brand value for ‘HRS’ and our products.
Tell us about your international business presence?
We work as a group and have company or associates in different geographies apart from India; we are directly responsible for Asian, South East Asia and Asia Pacific rim countries. We have a group company in Malaysia which helps us in marketing our products and services to this part of the world. We have a flexible group policy whereby the company has direct access to different markets. Thus we are able to provide customers with the latest products and services at the shortest time.
What will be the company’s road map for 2015-16.
For the year 2015-16, we anticipate a big growth in pharma sector and as a company we are looking at a 25 per cent growth over the past year. We are also looking at making inroads in to the pharma industry in areas we have not yet been able to establish customer connect.
u.sharma@expressindia.com